Free Republic

It is an article of faith in some circles that if the U.S. economy stops growing, President Trump will not be reelected in 2020. Thus opines Ross Douthat in The New York Times in a recent column headlined “What Happens in a Recession?” Answering his own question, Douthat writes: “First, the easy part: Donald Trump loses re-election. It will be ugly and flailing and desperate and – depending on recession-era geopolitics – potentially quite dangerous, but there is no way a president so widely disliked survives the evaporation of his boom.” Is Douthat sure about that? True, President Trump scores...

DES MOINES, Iowa — As Democratic presidential candidates descended on the Iowa State Fair, a plane buzzed overhead, an ominous warning fluttering behind it on a banner: “Focus on Rural America.” Democrats hoping to win the White House in 2020 recognize how critical that advice is after 2016, when Hillary Clinton turned in strong performances in many cities and suburbs but lost rural voters 2-to-1, falling short to President Donald Trump by slim margins in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats clawed back some gains in rural counties in the 2018 midterm elections, and they want to build on that...

Of all the tiresome falsehoods from the so-called “resistance,” the narrative that Democrats lose elections because they are just too decent and fair is among the most ridiculous. If only they would put aside their genteel political ways, this self-serving theory goes, and do what is necessary instead of what is civil, they would force the American people to finally see the truth of Donald Trump’s evil. Columnist Juan Williams (who, it should be noted, does have a reputation for civility) is the latest to propagate this assessment of Democrats as being too fair to their opponents in the Trump...

White House hopeful Beto O'Rourke visited an Arkansas gun show Saturday to talk with firearm owners and vendors about solutions to tackle gun violence. The visit comes one day after O'Rourke released a plan proposing a slate of gun control reforms and two weeks after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, where O'Rourke represented in Congress from 2013 to 2019. "At the show, Beto listened to voters － including many Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 － about their thoughts on gun safety. In order to make progress, Beto believes we have to meet people where they are,...

The Log Cabin Republicans endorsed President Trump's 2020 reelection bid on Friday, nearly four years after the conservative LGBT organization declined to endorse then-candidate Trump in 2016. The group said its national board of directors voted to endorse Trump after consulting with its chapters across the country. Log Cabin Republicans Chairman Robert Kabel and Vice Chairwoman Jill Homan argued in a Washington Post op-ed on Friday that Trump has helped remove LGBTQ rights as a wedge issue in the GOP, citing his administration's policies on ending the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as his push to get other countries to...

At least four Democratic presidential hopefuls — Joe Biden, Julián Castro, Joe Sestak and Marianne Williamson — are expected to attend an LGBTQ forum in Iowa on Sept. 20. The event at Coe College in Cedar Rapids will be hosted by One Iowa, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group; The Gazette, a daily in Eastern Iowa; and The Advocate, an LGBTQ magazine. The candidates will address the audience before a question-and-answer session with the three moderators, one from each of the host organizations. Courtney Reyes, the interim director of One Iowa, said the event will "focus on LGBTQ people in the...

It’s not ‘guaranteed’ every Clinton state will remain blue in 2020, analyst says A White House official grimaced slightly Wednesday as a cable news chyron showed stocks plummeting, potentially undercutting President Donald Trump’s Thursday plans to say his stewardship of a strong economy should help earn him a second term. Trump will make another campaign-trail pitch to voters Thursday evening in what his aides see as a likely 2020 battleground state that could be a photo finish next November: New Hampshire. His rally in Manchester will mark yet another early reelection tour stop in an expected or possible battleground state....

As Donald Trump looks to fire up his base Thursday night in New Hampshire, GOP political strategists and activists say the president needs to tout his economic successes, push back at “socialism” and reintroduce voters to the “unique appeal” that catapulted him to office. Trump returns tonight to the Southern New Hampshire University arena in Manchester — the site of his election eve rally in 2016 — for a “Keep America Great” re-election campaign event set to begin at 7 p.m. “He has a unique appeal,” Republican strategist Mike Dennehy said. “We know that he has the ability to connect...

In an interview with CNN on Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris argued that President Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his promises to workers. And she issued a dire warning about autoworkers' jobs in particular. "He said he was going to help working people, and it is estimated that as many as 300,000 autoworkers may be out of a job before the end of the year," she said aboard her campaign bus in Iowa. That was a more conservative figure than Harris used July 12 on the radio show "The Breakfast Club," during which she said, "He's helped the top...

DES MOINES — A Democratic presidential field that has struggled to precisely define its general election indictment of Donald Trump appears finally to have found it. In the wake of mass shootings in Ohio and Texas — the latter of which was tied to a suspect whose anti-immigrant sentiments led to the killing of 22 people — candidates are road-testing a withering argument that draws a direct line between gun violence and the president’s racist rhetoric. “We are living with a toxic brew of two different things, each of which is claiming lives and each of which represents a national...

In the wake of two mass shootings last weekend, 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson is calling to renew a ban on assault weapons. “The president has said that there's ... no political will or appetite for a ban on the assault weapons,” Williamson told Yahoo Finance’s Adam Shapiro in an interview this week. “This is clearly untrue. 70% of all Americans want to renew the ban on the assault weapons,” she added, apparently referring to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll out this week. The two shootings from last weekend both used military-style assault rifles, which can be used to fire...

Democratic hopeful Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., faced shouted questions over why he wouldn't plainly call President Trump a "white supremacist" as some of his fellow 2020 contenders have. The questions came as Delaney was surrounded by cameras and apparent members of the press after his speech at the Iowa State Fair on Friday. "Why do you stop short of calling him a white supremacist," Delaney was asked. The apparent reporter went on to ask what the difference was for Delaney between saying Trump supported white supremacists and using that label to describe him. "I think it's a distinction without a...

Sen. Cory Booker’s campaign has a brilliant idea on how to defeat President Donald Trump — just prevent him from campaigning. Of course, the New Jersey Democrat may want to concentrate more on emerging as his party’s nominee before worrying about going head-to-head with the president. Erin Turmelle, the New Hampshire campaign director for Booker called for Trump to cancel an upcoming rally there, saying these events “serve as a breeding ground for racism and bigotry” and have no place anywhere in the country. On Tuesday Turmelle tweeted: “Two days before [Booker] returns to NH, Donald Trump is planning to...

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has accused President Donald Trump of using the language of white nationalism and said he would push for a federal buyback programme to encourage Americans to give up their military-style weapons and ammunition if elected. The former vice president said in an interview with CNN that the voluntary weapons buybacks would be in addition to his push for renewing a lapsed federal ban on new manufacturing and sales of such firearms, a prohibition he helped win in 1994 as a senator from Delaware, only to watch it expire a decade later.

President Trump on Sunday forcefully denounced two mass shootings in Ohio and Texas, saying "hate has no place in our country." As the president spoke, top Democratic presidential candidates -- including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker -- demanded Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recall Congress from its recess, currently slated to last until the second week of September, to vote on initiatives to curb gun violence. Addressing reporters in Morristown, New Jersey, Trump promised "we're going to take care" of the problem. He said he's been speaking to the attorney general, FBI director and members of Congress and...

Booker and Beto O'Rourke both cited the president's rhetoric and stoking of racial division in the wake of the Texas shooting. Sen. Cory Booker placed blame on President Donald Trump and his racist rhetoric for a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that left at least 20 people dead. The shooting is being investigated as an act of domestic terror and a hate crime after officials said that they believed, but have not confirmed, a manifesto filled with anti-immigrant and white supremacist language was posted online and written by the gunman. “I think, at the end of the day, especially...

Don’t get duped by moderate Democrats — their message is a loser. That was the warning Bill de Blasio made to union workers Saturday in Las Vegas, where he urged his party to go hard to the left if it hopes to defeat Donald Trump. “Do we need to nominate a moderate to win in 2020? You hear it everywhere,” said hizzoner at a forum hosted by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “No, it is a trap, because when you listen to the moderates — I don’t disrespect them, I want to work with them —...

President Trump could win. Or he could lose. By no means does anyone know for sure. I base this uncertainty on six dimensions. Dimension 1: Immigration Democrats clearly seem to be implying: “Let all illegal immigrants into the United States. Then give them free health care, including the 11 million illegal immigrants presently in the country.” Costs to taxpayers would be beyond staggering. Trump, as we all know, opposes such actions. We can assume the public is divided. The unknown is: No one can divine the answer. Dimension 2: Trump’s supporters Hillary Clinton found out the hard way that it...

Pollster Lee Carter measured the responses of a group of 100 voters to President Trump’s rally in Cincinnati and she said Friday that independents are leaning toward the president's immigration stance. At one point in the speech, Trump said Democrats’ greatest “betrayal” was supporting “open borders’ and Democratic lawmakers “care more about illegal aliens than they care about their own constituents." “We’re not going to do that,” Trump said to his base at the rally on Thursday. Carter, president of communications consulting firm Maslansky + Partners, said the voter-reaction analysis showed independents tracking closer to Republicans than Democrats in response...

President Donald Trump is receiving the lion’s share of presidential campaign giving among Keizer residents. Trump has received $2,926.24 from Keizerites since the beginning of the year. That total derives from 37 contributions, small and large, made by 12 donors. Earlier this week, ProPublica shared quarterly reports from every state on campaign giving since the beginning of the year. Keizertimes culled the contributions from Keizer residents for this story. Trump’s biggest financial supporter in Keizer made six contributions totaling $600 since January. The largest single donation, $375, from a Keizer resident also went to Trump. For the Democrats, Sen. Bernie...